Tim and Joel begin with a discussion of games we recently played. We highlight the problems of returning to grand narrative games like Mafia 3, and the possibilities of player-defined narratives, before looking at procedural generation and its role in game narrative construction, looking at Minecraft and our recent favorite, Valheim. Games mentioned: Mafia 3…

Tim and Joel examine the difference between passively experiencing and actively performing or participating in narrative, and the different degrees to which games make that participation meaningful. We begin by looking at branching narrative, with reference to The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, a game that takes narrative divergence in bold directions. We briefly examine…

In this episode, we talk about UI’s ability to embody the player into the character they are playing. We talk about what that means for classic adventure games, action games, and immersive sims, and talk a bit about the potential for both embodiment in VR, and in the real world. Games discussed: Technomancer Hunt: Showdown…

In this episode, Tim and Joel begin a conversation on UI in games. We talk about the purpose of UI generally, in games specifically, and start breaking down the ways UI can make or break a player’s immersion in a character. Games discussed: Dead…

In this episode, Joel and Tim focus in on the problem of designing space games as if you were designing amusement park rides — by bolting a lot of experiences together based on player expectations, rather than allowing an idea to grow organically. We…

In this special episode, Tim and Joel discuss next week’s historic election. We discuss where we are now, the choices that lie before us, and why — even though Biden is a centrist at best — we’re going to vote for Biden in order to stay the tide of…

In this episode, Joel and Tim continue our discussion on space games. We deep dive into dramatic play and immersion, and discuss how the marketing points of many space games (things like universe scale, roles you can fill, etc.) are in direct conflict…

In this episode, Joel and Tim begin discussing space games — the kind of game where you are in command of a spaceship ranging the void, the open world that was invented by Elite in 1984 and that has been iterated upon ever since. In part 1, we…